A Courtesy
by Quiet Times
Summary: Hyuuga Hinata is sent as a diplomat to Suna when enemy ninja strain the village alliance. She expected to bow her head and babysit children in the Academy, so why is the genin Suna monster, now the terrifying Kazekage, talking to her?
1. Chapter 1

Takes place someplace in Shippuden universe (I haven't kept up with the war). I'm tired of weak portrayals of Hinata - she always gets the short end of the stick. That and sexually experienced Gaara - what with the past insanity and now as Kazekage, having the time to get around is so unrealistic. I'm writing the story I'd like to read.

Hinata speaking without honorifics in her mind is a quirk of small rebellion on her part, in case anyone had questions about it.

Chapter One

"This way, Hyuuga-san," the Suna chunin instructed.

His eyes were covered with a thick cloth, leaving his mouth and body to her interpretation. Without the Byakugan, she didn't glean much - there was dirt packed under his fingernails, from too many long nights lost without hygienic indulgence; the callouses on his hands were from writing, not field work; there was an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice from lack of sleep. The reports were correct: Suna was struggling under a lack of manpower.

Hinata stood from where they had her waiting in the front lobby of Suna's capital building. "Yes," she answered.

_You are jounin,_ the strong part of her whispered to the small. _Look like it!_

Hinata pulled back her shoulders. Each step was on a perfect count, her heart purposely slowed to what could be considered Polite Nervousness. Gone were the days when she trailed and twitched and stuttered. She was Hyuuga Hinata: jounin diplomat from the Leaf.

"Diplomat" was a pretty lie. She was in Sunagakure as insurance. Formally, they called her "diplomat," but that was only the title they gave her on her mission scroll before Tsunade stamped her approval - but not without a salient glance directed upward to her newest jounin.

"Have fun," Tsunade said.

She meant, Lay low. Smile. Look pretty. Find out what's going on.

The chunin knocked on massive double doors. "Come in," a female barked.

Hinata gave a quick scan of the Kazekage's office and swallowed the twitter her heart sang out to her dangerous strangers. The three looked up at the sound.

_Jishin._

Sabaku no Kankuro, Sabaku no Temari, Sabaku no Gaara - the Sand Siblings were personally welcoming her to Suna.

The A-class rank felt justified.

"How is Naruto?"

Hinata blinked. "Eh?"

The Kazekage stared into her with those bruised eyes. She had never felt the power of the Byakugan from someone who was not of her clan, but she felt it now. Hinata became hyper aware of her disheveled appearance in front of the desert king: her fringe smeared on her forehead with sweat; rank, unwashed clothing; tracking sand drizzling from between her toes all over his impeccable carpet. _Shameful._

"Always with the annoying brat," Kankuro teased. He was lounging on a couch on one of the far walls of the room. He was strewn carelessly on it, but laying on his side so as to accommodate the scrolls of his monsters. Temari was standing a few casual feet away from the Kazekage's desk with her arms crossed over her chest in a show of relaxation - yet her weight was on the balls of her feet, always a half-second away from violence should it be warranted. From the relative hostility Temari was exuding, she wished warrant. Hinata noted this, as well as the fact that the Kazekage looked contained and still as he did sometimes during the chunin exams, right before he crushed fellow genin into blood rain.

Gaara ignored Kankuro's jibe. "Is he well?"

Hinata tried to calm the hummingbird in her chest. He was Kazekage now - rumored to be cautiously loved by his people - and he was Naruto's friend. The last one should matter the most to her, and it did, and yet she could only look on his hair and think of blood.

_Jishin. Don't stutter._ "Yes. He...is on mission right now. He is very busy, but when he comes home he's always at Ichiraku. He's eating well." _Blathering about Naruto-kun's eating habits to the Kazekage? Neji would blush for shame._ But the mention of familiarity was calming in its own little way.

The Kazekage lowered his gaze, tapped his pen against his desk. "I see. Your papers."

_Jishin._

Her official mission, the one she was relinquishing to the Kazekage, was B-rank and had no need for a blood seal. She walked to his desk and handed it to him, her fingers grasping the very end of the cylinder so there was no chance of their accidentally touching. He pulled it from her. "You're dismissed."

"Yes," Hinata said warily...and not a little ungratefully. She turned her back to the siblings - an action that made the shinobi in her stress - and the Kazekage called out, "Not you." Hinata watched the unnamed chunin duck out before she turned around again. Apparently jounin could still blush. Kankuro looked amused, Temari cross, the Kazekage unreadable. He read the scroll in silence, one that his siblings waited for him to break.

"The promised diplomat from the Leaf, to teach at the Academy and volunteer in the hospital," he summed. Temari snorted. The Kazekage ignored her. "Are you med-nin?"

"No," she admitted. "I can do basic healing techniques and field patch-ups."

"How long have you been jounin?"

Another derived weakness. "Three weeks."

The older siblings had been jounin for years, and him - Kazekage. How small and useless she must look to them: a hostage princess to fake smiles.

The Kazekage made eye contact with her for the second time, and now that Naruto was out of the way, it was business. "Why are you really here?"

"I was instructed by Tsunade-sama that it is for your ears only."

"I tell Temari and Kankuro everything."

She felt her fear snag onto her speech and paused before she made a fool of herself. Shinobi - jounin shinobi - didn't stutter. "Even so."

But what would she do if he refused? If they interpreted her as hostile, she was alone. The small part of her despaired.

"Temari, Kankuro."

Hinata stared at the Kazekage as his siblings breezed past her, ruffling her blue-black hair from her shoulders. "How annoying," Kankuro bit. "I'm going to the training grounds, little brother." Temari contributed, "My office," and they exited.

The Kazekage folded his hands underneath his chin and prompted, "Your real mission."

Hinata longed to stand at the far end of the room, where she had begun.

"Enemy nin have been sabotaging Konoha borders and missions. Our shinobi report that all enemy nin following this pattern of sabotage wear hitai-ate of the Sand." His eyes narrowed, and the ectoplasm green was nearly lost in black insomnia. Angry and suspicious, as Tsunade had been when Leaf shinobi had dragged back the only body of the enemy nin they could kill. Hinata had to carry the man's hitai-ate herself - his skull had been crushed under Kiba and Akamaru's Double-Headed Wolf, and frankly she and Shino found Kiba's whistling as he carried the dead man on his back sadistic. "You have reported via correspondence with Tsunade-sama that Konoha shinobi have done the same, and I suggest foul play that someone is out to sour our alliance. Tsunade-sama sent me as a show of good faith and to help with the investigation as the Kazekage-sama sees fit."

"Is that all?"

"You are understaffed," she reported. _Don't fidget. They're just eyes! He's the same age as me!_

"Suna takes care of itself."

How best to phrase Tsunade's will? "When one is thirsty, it is too late to think about digging a well," she said.

"You offer proverbs?"

"Friendship," Hinata confirmed. _Did I misstep? _The Aburame and Hyuuga were fond of their proverbs. "Our alliance is very profitable for trade in Konoha. Judging from the Leaf merchants in your market, I assume it is the same for Suna. Tsunade-sama instructed me to defend it at all costs."

The Kazekage was still hunched, hands in front of his face, eyes gleaming. He hadn't so much as twitched their entire conversation, and his tone was cordial but with every deficiency of emotion. His entire presence was an absence, lacking any insanity she had feared as a child. What was left was a slate Hinata couldn't read with her weak, mundane eyes. It was disconcerting. "Friendship is one thing, favors another. I do not wish to be in debt to the Hokage."

"If you are wary of favors, Tsunade-sama suggested sending one of your shinobi to Konoha. The hospital is strained under this threat."

"Very well. I'll dispatch a chunin at dusk."

The Kazekage had stopped speaking. Was she supposed to leave? Hinata had read a few scrolls on Suna culture, but there hadn't been much in the way of interacting with the Kazekage.

_He's still staring at me!_

"Your eyes."

Hinata averted her gaze. _Coward. _"Yes?"

"Hyuuga."

It wasn't a question; he had read her name already. "Yes."

"The Hokage sent me a kekkei genkai as insurance of her loyalties. Are you a friend of Naruto?"

"I-I suppose?"

"I see." Apparently that was the most important thing the Kazekage needed confirmation on. "Matsuri," he called. The doors opened, and a nondescript Sand chunin with brown hair and large black eyes bowed a greeting. "Escort the Hyuuga to her apartment."

"Kazekage-sama," the chunin said behind her.

To Hinata, the Kazekage said, "Temari will brief you this evening. I trust you will not wander until then."

Hinata bowed, and his demon eyes could accost her no longer. She turned and fled like a genin.

Her lodgings were sparse but comfortable enough. A bedroom, kitchen, and private bath were pure luxury compared to the destitution she had lived in for five days. The journey to Suna had taken longer than it should have - Hinata traveled slow to thwart suspicion and had to take out her travel papers often. The border patrols were on high alert for Leaf shinobi, and Sand patrols were overworked and sleep-deprived and shuriken-happy. The journey required her utmost patience, and sometimes the passing exploding tag or smoke bomb.

Matsuri returned the bag Hinata had to abandon at Customs, explained the water rations, chattered happily about Hinata's eyes and hair and was met with soft deflections, and tardily left her with nothing to show for it. Hinata quickly used the Byakugan to clear suspicion of cameras, listening devices, traps, and then the _second_ thing she did was use her entire day's water ration on a bath. The Sand shinobi had nothing in the way of scents - smelling like a rose lent to being plucked - but the water was chilled to a delicacy. Hinata simpered for an hour in it, scrubbing and then submerging to hide from the heat that permeated everything in Suna.

But childhood ends. The water warmed to her body heat and the desert, and she abandoned it.

They had offered no uniform in the way of desert shinobi life, which was worth considering. In a thin kimono discovered folded in the bathroom, Hinata washed her unmentionably disgusting clothing she had been paraded to the Kazekage in with her bath water - clean enough to last through Temari's counsel until tomorrow's rations. Hinata massaged the sweat stains out of her hitai-ate band. In one way they were honoring her, allowing her to bear her clan and village for all to admire, and in another they were clearly marking her as an outsider.

Just as well. She would smile prettily, watch, and listen. When Temari called on her, hip cocked and glare at its highest voltage, Hinata was ready.

The knock was loud and impatient. Temari was coarse and ignored an introduction and wore Overwork like the best of them. "Gaara doesn't want you in the Academy. An extra jounin is nothing to scorn. Tomorrow you'll acquaint yourself with the hospital and help where you can. We need our medical ninja on the field."

"Yes."

"He wants to use you on missions," Temari said, the anger and hand on her hip ruining the nonchalance she was proposing. "I told him not to trust you."

Hinata thought for a moment. There was no way to win, except maybe an armistice. "I will go wherever I am directed."

Temari grunted. "You will report at 7 o'clock in the main lobby of the hospital. A chunin will attend you. I trust we won't have any more Leaf puppets dancing through our borders, miming promises?"

"If you mean Shikamaru-san," Hinata said innocently, and Temari had the decency to blush, "he's leading the investigation back in Konoha and must stay there to direct stratagems."

"Well," Temari grunted, clearing her throat, "whatever." She stomped quite stiff-legged down the hall to secret holdings. Hinata closed the door, opened a portal window to let in the kind of chill that hovered over graveyards, and lay in the bed in the dark for a healthy hour, missing.


	2. Chapter 2

Kankuro has swagswag (Lil B, anyone? Anyoneeeee?).

A "biwa" is a Japanese lute.

Also, I've already edited chapters 1 some, but I'm new to the site and can't faneggle the edits to work. The internet is frustrating.

Chapter Two

"Good morning, Hyuuga-san, I thought we might start you out healing surface wounds on walk-ins. Have you worked in Konoha's hospital? We work much the same way, just on a smaller scale - here's our first room. Ami-chan was burned by an exploding tag."

"That was...uh, excellent. I think I should speak to the head nurse."

"Hyuuga-san, your papers here say you only have basic medical training...Maybe not invasive surgery, but...Come, leave the walk-ins and maternity to the useless new chunin they gave me. This way's the ICU - what's your experience with severed limbs?"

"This way, Hyuuga-san, punctured lung and shattered ribcage in Room 37, critical condition."

"My beeper's going. Room 31, severed carotid artery, critical condition."

"You've done well. You can take lunch now. Be back in the ICU in thirty. A dango stall down the street stays open through noon, Kami be with them."

"Thank you," Hinata said. She peeled off her medical coat into Kaori's arms and scrunched her eyes with a smile. Hinata waited until she had sat down in the only food stall still open at midday, when the sun was greediest, before letting her shoulders slump in the overhang shadow.

She was bored. She missed Kiba and Akamaru and Shino and trees. Normally new scenery would evoke a kind of wonder, but the heat spoiled it like meat. Suna had degenerated into a nuisance in hours and the timetable for her mission was tragically open-ended.

Hinata's hair was loosed in a bun for sterility but her back was drenched with sweat regardless - the hospital had little airflow and was packed to the nooks and crannies with mortality. The sun was life and death in this culture, and at high noon all of Suna's citizens packed away their business to wait it out until dusk, when the city came alive again.

They needed her in the hospital - dearly - but that couldn't stop her from feeling wasted in a strange city by strangers. That, and the part that _she_ was the one that looked the part of stranger - her lavender sweater and blue pants were violently out of sorts with the Sand colors of tan, brown, black, red. Her clothes were highly impractical, too, and dehydration was suckling away her chakra faster than the healing jutsu, but underneath she only had mesh armor and chest bindings...it would be highly improper of the Hyuuga heir. And changing her clothes wouldn't change her hair, her eyes.

She had reached jounin. Could she pull off a flak jacket?

Hinata ate the sticks of dango slowly. Another time, in cooler weather, she might have enjoyed them.

When she returned to the hospital, Hinata unflinchingly stripped off her damp jacket and donned the open front Suna medical coat to the shock of many lower ranking male shinobi, injured or otherwise. Kaori might have looked impressed.

"Kazekage-sama wants to see you."

Hinata looked to Kaori, who was rolling a carrier bird message. The young woman burned it with a single hand seal and a burst of flame, dropped it in a sink and began the sanitation ritual again. "You can head over there after you replenish Tohru-san's chakra. I'd like to watch, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," Hinata replied absently. She ruined the nonchalance by anxiously running a hand through her fringe, but the Leaf shinobi had grown on Kaori, who had the decency not to comment. Hinata rolled around the prospect of meeting again with the Kazekage in her mouth. It tasted bad.

Someone (it looked like Hana's signature) had sewed up the gaping, asking mouth in Tohru's chest, but he was helpless as a civilian without any chakra to help him along. It was the second blood, the Hyuuga liked to say. Drained of either and you were dead.

Hinata knew where every single tenketsu point in the chakra network was by heart (also pain and experience), but variations of flesh and muscle and the natural quirks that came along with such complicated things such as the human body called for Byakugan precision. Kaori's breathing stopped on its activation, became a see-through three-dimensional chakra network. _She's strong_, Hinata observed, and turned to her patient.

Tohru gave no indication of consciousness even as Hinata touched an index finger to several tenketsu, opening them and then injecting raw, non-medical chakra into his system. Hinata gave him what she could. Only Kami knew how Sakura could do this everyday. The waste of chakra was significant, equal to several hours of intense training with her team. Hinata would lay on a bench of chairs at midday ("death hours," they called them) and shuffle back to her apartment when Kaori was convinced Hinata had staved off enough imminence for the day to collapse until her alarm disturbed her into consciousness again. It was a heavy, tedious existence. It lasted five days.

In the tediousness she thought a lot about Konoha. Shino had been a central point of long-distance surveillance in Shikamaru's plans and was therefor indisposed, but she had hugged Kiba and Akamaru goodbye. The only other person that had seen her off was Tsunade - her father was meeting with the elders everyday to discuss her fate as heir now that the playing field had changed and she was jounin, and Neji was on mission working himself to an early grave. She hadn't seen Naruto and still hadn't decided if she would have said goodbye, but he was probably yelling about how he should be the one to take down this newest threat by himself or in Ichiraku, remembering what it was like to be in a world where Hinata was the sullen weird girl who occasionally existed.

Tohru heaved with a breath and opened his eyes. Brown eyes and hair, a staple of Suna. Hinata expected him to scream, but the illumination of opened tenketsu often masked pain. Tohru sighed. Hinata continued prodding, appraising, prodding until she safely fleshed out his chakra system. Hinata smiled politely through his ogling of her face while Kaori explained his condition and then excused them.

"The Byakugan was meant for the hospital." Kaori was colored and opaque again. Her black eyes were cross, as if she were admonishing the other woman for not coming to the Suna hospital earlier.

There were building a foundation for friendship. And yet no matter how much Hinata ached for it, anyone, her mission called for cordiality only.

"The Byakugan puts people in the hospital," Hinata said gently. "I did not intern in Konoha's hospital because my clan considers it wasteful of the kekkei genkai. I am here on the Kazekage-sama's orders."

Kaori closed up. "Better go see him, then."

Hinata bowed and left before she could err anymore. Dusk was encroaching in the cooling breath of the desert and the sunset over the squat clay landscape of the city was a splash of red, like her regret. Hinata pulled the elastic out of her damp hair and began trudging. Everything was doom.

"Hey, woman."

Hinata paused for the man that had called out. Brown hair, brown eyes - if he were a little smaller he could have been Tohru's brother. _And they say that the _Hyuuga_ look similar._

"Going to the Kazekage building?" His words were a confident swagger that Hinata was astounded to find that he emulated in his walk as well.

Black shirt, black pants, hands in his pockets, no visible weapons - all that meant nothing to her as a shinobi, only that he would be roundabout if he meant her harm. Most of Suna was pleasant enough, if suspicious of her "diplomat" status. Hinata trusted none of them.

_They are watching._

"Yes," Hinata answered back pleasantly enough. "But I regret to say I wasn't forewarned on an escort."

He came to a stop a few feet from her and their shoulders squared. "A benefit of wearing makeup is that no one recognizes you without it." He was amused and sounded vaguely familiar. "Women understand this the most, yeah?"

They walked. "Good evening, Kankuro-san."

"Except you. You don't need makeup. Masks those pretty eyes with useless gunk."

She waved a noncommittal hand. "No, you're too kind."

"I heard you started talking proverbs to Gaara. An interesting move, but I guess old wisdom is good wisdom, yeah?" They turned a corner. "Here's one for you: an excess of courtesy is discourtesy. When a man compliments you, take it."

He was relatively straightforward, a personality type that wasn't difficult to interpret until it was underestimated. Kaori was like that, too. Maybe a subtle nuance was the norm here (Konoha seemed to have an overabundance of loud ninja in loud colors). Hinata graced a little smile in response and Kankuro escorted her right into the Kazekage's office and stood on the opposite side of the imperial desk as Temari, who looked up from the scroll pushed out on the Kazekage's desk and scowled. _He_ acted as though Hinata had been there the whole time, and finally deigned to acknowledge her presence.

"Deigned" was an accurate word. The Kazekage never worried himself with a forewarning in summoning the Leaf shinobi, and so she always came to him sweaty and ruffled. The weight of exhaustion pinched her shoulders, and she fought to keep her spine straight and chest out, but the Hyuuga modesty that had slept in the face of practicality was now screaming.

Hinata looked less the part of outsider. The lavender sweater was stuffed in some forgotten place in that empty dresser and Kaori had replaced the blue pants with breathable, sand-colored shorts. Hinata's weapons pouch was on a bandaged and otherwise frighteningly bare thigh. Only the Leaf hitai-ate, limp from the death hours around her neck, now identified her as different, but that didn't detract from the fact that she was practically _naked in front of the Kazekage of Sunagakure._

_Don't squirm don't squirm jishin._

The Kazekage's gaze was a flicker, up and down and then back to the papers on his desk. The Leaf shinobi merited no more than that. "Is Suna treating you well?"

She didn't know whether to be mortified or relieved with such a quick dismissal. "It's...very hot," Hinata said dumbly.

His mouth might have twitched. "Yes, it is."

"Gaara," Temari warned.

"It's done, Temari," he said, not looking at his sister.

"_No, it's not_," and there was desperation that she vainly tried to convey. She almost touched his shoulder, and it hovered there uncertainly, but she leaned in instead. Hinata was forgotten. "Konoha has been a good ally for years, but that doesn't erase our past. It's too convenient an excuse to plant a shinobi in our village when we are at our weakest. I know you trust Naruto-kun, but don't extend that courtesy to the Hokage. Tsunade-sama is the best kunoichi in the world, and it makes her the most dangerous. They will put their snake in our beds."

Three pairs of eyes snapped to her. Temari whipped her massive iron fan from her back and instantaneously slid into battle position. Kankuro straightened from his hunch over the Kazekage's desk. The Kazekage was unmoved, but she had his full attention. Together they stared into the rippled eyes of Byakugan.

"Are you stupid?" Kankuro drawled. Hinata had no misgivings on how easily a second could pass and she would find herself in a wooden belly. "You're threatening the Kazekage, woman. We could kill you now."

"Betrayal," Temari hissed.

Hinata was as still as the Kazekage, his chakra flow smooth despite the addition of danger. _Perhaps a Leaf jounin with a kekkei genkai does not represent danger to him._ Beside him, Temari and Kankuro were surging, but this was recorded with peripheral. She looked only at the unblinking. Hinata told him, as evenly and stutter-proof as she could, "If you have no use for me, send me back to Konoha. But I will not hear insult to Tsunade-sama or my village. They are my pride. I won't let you."

"Stand down," the Kazekage decided. His chakra network disappeared along with the Byakugan wrinkles and 360 degrees of power. To Temari, "You were out of line."

"What good is the ambassador to Konoha if she doesn't speak her mind?" Temari clipped, but hefted her fan back into its sheath. Her glare was undiluted poison - that and...fear?

_She fears me?_ Hinata couldn't comprehend the ramifications of that sentiment, and was relieved of trying to interpret them: the Kazekage was speaking to her.

"You and I will be going on nightly border patrols, eight until dawn. You'll have the day to yourself to sleep and volunteer in the hospital when you can. The hospital staff seems to like you well enough, and Kaori-san's reported that she's never taught a more capable shinobi." He allowed a moment for Kaori's praise to fill Hinata with guilt and pride. "You will meet me at the village gate. We begin tonight."

"Might want to bring some thicker clothes," Kankuro sneered. He might not have sneered, but it seemed like the only expression he possessed. "Gets cold out in the desert at night."

Hinata knew too well. Despite Tsunade warning her to keep her sweater and wear several layers of pants, Hinata had had to travel hard and fast in the black to keep from freezing to death.

"You can take a cloak in the front office and leave."

Overwhelmed by apprehension and questions she couldn't ask, Hinata bowed stiffly and left.

She fingered the cloak at her small apartment chair and table. It was definitely a Sand production: a neutral brown, heavy, scratchy but well made. _It sits well on the shoulders_, Hinata thought, and buckled up along the left. She had redressed in her old clothes and stood judging in the small oval mirror beside the kitchen portal window. She thought little things to keep away big, Kazekage-shaped things. Her apartment was filled with little thing thoughts, and when foreboding quieted them she took to the streets. Lanterns were strung up every night after fortune-tellers assured the people of no impending sandstorms. Someone was plucking a biwa, and cactus night flowers perfumed the chill. In the flickering dark and a pulled hood the Sand people left her well enough alone, and Hinata perused them in peace. A Konoha merchant with grit all along his arms pressed a cactus flower into her hand. With the absence of pointing fingers and clandestine whispers, she even enjoyed herself.

The village gates, huge monoliths, stood open to him, and in the mouth of Sunagakure he was small. The moon outlined an unruly mess of hair above the hourglass figure of the sand gourd. He turned to her as she approached. His eyes were silver, his hood covered the eerie tattoo on his forehead, the bruises could pass as shadow, and the Kazekage looked like a normal boy. He nodded a greeting and she mirrored it more deeply.

"My apologies for earlier today," he spoke. It had none of Temari's bite or Kankuro's chauvinism. Everything he was was elegant, composed. She wondered how long he had to meditate on Naruto to achieve that. "My sister is concerned, but it is misplaced."

Hinata activated Byakugan, stroked her thumb over white paper petals, and dropped it. They ran into the black and white photograph. She considered more forcefully apologizing for her unspeakable behavior and then thought of Kankuro. Hinata tilted her head toward his quiet chakra network and called, "She loves you."

It was a while before he responded, and his words were almost lost on the sand dunes. "It surprises me everyday."


	3. Chapter 3

Hinata's tachycardia is made up - like the setting of this story, I like bending things. Does that make it an AU? I'd also like to apologize for the sporadic updates (hi, 20 page Physics paper and hellish finals) and that the reason for the M rating won't crop up for a _long_ time. Such is the strife of introverts...

Chapter Three

Hinata ached. She hungered. She _ached._

Out the window the squat buildings were glowing pink. She had slept for a solid twelve hours and felt as though she had only crawled to her bed and blinked. The thought of food made her comb fingers through damp hair and don clothes that the sun had dried on the clothesline out her window. Her eyes were pinched with fatigue. If the overwork continued, she'd fit in perfectly.

Kaori would have relieved herself of work by now (her shifts routinely ran from 5 to 5) and so Hinata ate in the residential wing's cafeteria. In the ranks of shinobi, no one stared at her outright; it was the feeling she got when she suspected Shino had stuck a kikkai to tail her, only not as cute. Dozens of shinobi were analyzing in their own secret ways. She ate her nato and steamed rice, packaged some rice for patrol, and calmly exited from their black, unfamiliar eyes.

But there was nothing to do. These darkening streets weren't hers. On the short notice of her mission, Hinata had grabbed a bag pre-packed months ago just for short notice like this and then ran to hug Kiba, which had proved upsetting. Apparently the her back then had only found it prevalent to subsist on a small package of uncooked rice (she had been on a self-conscious diet after spending too much time between Ino and Sakura's self-deprecation) and one of Naruto's thoroughly read Icha Icha novels that she strongly suspected she had not packed. Hinata took one look at the woman with breasts leaking out of her top and threw it in an empty drawer. A tent, a book, rice, some prudent reserves of shuriken; now the tent was unneeded, the book useless and troubling, the rice eaten. Hinata had two changes of clothes and a handful of the shuriken Tenten had personally sharpened for her. She would need more than that to protect the Kazekage.

To an armory, then.

Hinata was pointed to a stubby building set off the main road through Suna. The shopkeeper hadn't lit his gas lamps yet and with only the sunset the place was pointedly dark. There was a thick, scarred man behind a counter of glass and a bandaged shinobi that found the wall of swords more interesting than her.

"I don't think you can afford those, sweetheart," the shopkeeper said, misinterpreting her interest. Hinata examined merchandise opposite the sword wall, projectiles that better fit her fighting style. A sword was clumsy and useless in her hands. Shuriken and dai shuriken and fuuma shuriken, kunai and packages of carefully tied exploding notes, senbon and hari and coils of wire, smoke grenades and pouches of makibishi were all displayed in troughs along the wall. Umbrellas and fans that paled in Temari's wake were folded like sleeping flowers above her.

"Those don't come cheap, either."

After much observation and encouragement from her cousin's tentative girlfriend, Hinata had adopted a no-nonsense personality in armories. "A man said you were the best armory in Suna. I didn't come here for cheap deals. How sharp are your shuriken?"

"Sharp enough." A nondescript movement from her right peripheral and the thin whistle of air blowing through the shuriken's center hole and it was imbedded into the wall. A blue-black hair stuck out oddly from the rest, a split end. "My son, Sho," the shopkeeper introduced. The bandaged man had gone back to his swords, picking up a tanto and turned it in his hands, weighing it. Had she met him before? So many Suna shinobi favored dressing in a way that made them indistinguishable from all the rest.

"I will take forty, sir."

Hinata took to the market on the way back and picked up enough tea to put the one burner and kettle in her apartment to good use, her weapons pouches satisfyingly bulging. By the sun, she was still an hour early for her patrol. Hinata sat in the entrance lobby of the Kazekage's office and relived yesterday. They had spoken not one word until the horizon purpled, and didn't slow their sprint until they were back at the Suna main gates to change hands with a Sand patrol worriedly relieved to have their Kazekage return unblemished. Legs shivering with exhaustion and chakra almost completely depleted, Hinata still caught it. She filed their nervous smiles away as Interesting, to appreciate later. "Please meet me here again tonight," he said, and then he walked toward his office. Spoken word broke the spell. Hinata shuffled, dragged herself through her apartment door and into the bath to go to bed clean - some of her stiff Hyuuga mannerisms would never change. She grew tired thinking on it.

There were the motions of polite greeting in her peripheral and Hinata quickly stood. "I-I was going to come to you, Kazekage-sama."

The Kazekage was nodding greetings and was then upon her. "You have been waiting for over an hour. Apologies, I had paperwork."

She battled the physiological urge to blush. Hinata was so blind, without her Byakugan or Shino's kekkai or Kiba's nose. Had he spied her with a jutsu? With cameras? Nosy chunin? He was adjusting his night cloak, standard issue and identical to her own. In his hand was the strap to his sand gourd, which he drew over his head and settled in its rightful place on his back. With that glaring identifying symbol, it was rather pointless that he pulled up his hood. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Kazekage-sama." She had waited in her own desert cloak, and suffered all the more for it. There were no cool day breezes in Suna - crosswinds blinded you.

They were already near the shadow of the village gates. "We will patrol the eastern sands and the mountain crags. One of my shinobi was attacked there last week. It was our first casualty."

Hinata nodded in acknowledgement. There were no words. They waited until the second noon patrol made it back, and then they ran.

They ran side by side on sand - a habit of the Kazekage to dropping his right shoulder indicated he did not particularly like her running behind him, so Hinata didn't do so until the terrain made it necessary. She gratefully slid into the colorblind comfort of the Byakugan. For the time it took for Hinata to scout 360 degrees and a good distance across the whistling mountains of sand, his hair and past terrors blanched to gray. They did not talk. The moon guided them, and chakra through the soles of Hinata's feet made running on sand no less arduous than Konoha's forests. When the Kazekage got bored with running he stilled and a lurching wave of sand took over, carrying him forward. Hinata eyed the justu. A little jealousy kept her ears warm.

With their roundabout patrol, it took several hours to return to the bowl of mountains and cliffs that served as a natural stronghold for his village. The Kazekage transitioned to a dais of leaking sand and rose, arms crossed and weight on the balls of his feet. Hinata considered climbing manually to save chakra, but the Kazekage moved fast and she used chakra infusion to jump further just to keep up. The moon did not shine evenly for the mountains, and many crags and footings were suggestion or shadow. Patrolling the mountain paths was for day patrols; with the risk of ambush under darkness, night patrols covered purposefully unmapped terrain.

"How far can you see?"

Hinata skidded in gravel and almost fell off the cliff face. The Kazekage paused midair to let Hinata find good footing and catch her breath. "Five kilometers...Kazekage-sama." Shadows and hungry lungs hid her lie.

"_What_ do you see?"

"Ah...x-ray...infrared light. Chakra networks. I scan every four minutes, Kazekage-sama. Ah, would you have me...look for anything in particular?"

"No." He ascended. Hinata clamored after him, baffled. It was the first time he had spoken to her on a patrol. Self-conscious and anxious, Hinata cut down her scanning to three minutes and stretched to nine kilometers for a time to reassure herself. Even in infrared, the only things that glowed life against the deep blue of the outside world were lizards and bats and the Kazekage.

In his office, he made her nervous. He was quiet like the Hyuuga, but not angry like Hiashi. He was politically straightforward, or at least appeared to be, and it was disconcerting to look under the underneath and find only haunting green.

On patrol, he made her nervous. He seemed to understand the practicality and serenity of silence as much as Hinata, but instead of wearing it as armor like Shino it was more like skin. Tsunade was relatively straightforward: stuttering was a weakness, so in the early days Hinata did all she could to keep her traitorous mouth shut. Tsunade was amiable enough with her newest jounin, and the women were on more friendly terms than Tsunade and Hiashi. But what did the Kazekage think of Hinata? Should she be appreciative being able to show her worth on such intimate patrols, or was this his personal remedy to keep her from skulking around in his village?

She knew what she thought of _him. _Sabaku no Gaara was a blur of fear in her childhood memories, blood hair and sand gourd and that terrible tattoo on his forehead, leering above blacked eyes. Neji might have made soup of her internal organs (and she still had a slight tachycardia that occasionally acted up and haunted her cousin), but it was that boy that graced her nightmares for months after her first chunin exams. To hear Naruto talk about the other man when they were grown made Hinata suspect she had misplaced a name somewhere down the road - to have that disproved left her helplessly unsettled.

The climbing was over for the most part; they had reached a horizontal plateau. With the dark and the wind howling like nin-dogs on the full moon, the crags were nothing but treacherous. The Kazekage continued to lead, checking her progress over his shoulder every so often, and when Hinata was not scanning she unabashedly scrutinized.

He hadn't grown much vertically. In that regard, he was as tall as Naruto, a reference that came to her automatically and severely dismayed. His shoulders had broadened and he had put on weight, so his gourd didn't seem ready to tip him over from an overzealous gust of wind. But he was still pale, despite his desert kingdom - both of them glowed white under the moon even when the Byakugan went smooth - and he had a pinch of anemia to him. The wind against the cliffs had buffeted off his hood, unveiling that disturbing hair that looked like uncombed gore. Many tales of the Kazekage had been recounted around Konoha, and it was said that the jinchuuriki that left him an insomniac had been stolen from him. On the truth of that, his back told her nothing. But while his village was suffering under the massive amount of patrols, insomnia had arguably been their Kazekage's oldest friend.

Hinata hoped her stagger looked elegant - the Kazekage had stopped. _How did I overlook?_ But the Kazekage was not engaging. Hinata deactivated the Byakugan to more clearly observe the blood stain at their feet.

It was still there, eerily. Konoha's summer rains would have washed the evidence away quickly, but a fortnight had passed in Suna and it remained. The blood was black by moonlight, crusted on the rock like a scab. The wind caught flakes of blood, so at least there was no body outline. A patchwork memory was all that remained of a shinobi.

"Why here?" he murmured. "Coincidence? An accident? Or to gain my full attention?" He turned away from the blood to scorch her with mother-of-pearl eyes and demanded, "Why are they wearing Konoha hitai-ate?"

There was danger in his words, an evil that remained tight-lipped under the sun. Hinata spoke slowly. "Our villages have lost much in recent years. Konoha used to be the most powerful shinobi village in the world, but that has been stolen from us. Maybe they mean to keep us from rising to power once again."

He was the one to look away, turning back to his shinobi. "The Land of Fire will be reborn. They will rise again. And I intend Suna to be around when that happens." He stepped around the blood and sand surged beneath his sandals. Hinata stepped in behind him. They continued.

"The night is too calm," the Kazekage told Hinata some patrols later. "The sand storm will be unavoidable."

He wouldn't slow his pace to let her properly think his words through, so what hit her was a pleasant adrenaline panic to whiten her cardio-pinked face. "Sand storms?"

"There." The Kazekage slowed to a walk and finally stopped to point. "On the horizon. We won't be able to outrun it."

She didn't understand until she activated the Byakugan. And then the battering of her heart snuck up her throat and filled her head with helium. _We won't be able to outrun it._ "I - I see."

He still did not talk or look at her or acknowledge her existence all that much, so every time their eyes met was a nervous adventure.

"We will continue as far west as we can until it catches us," he instructed.

They didn't progress very far. Her traveling cloak was a banner behind her, choking whatever was left of her after swallowing all of her hair. If she didn't have a hand keeping the hood pulled to protect her buffeted face, it became a parachute and threatened to wring her. The Kazekage wasn't fairing any better. She squinted against the sand granules in the air. It was cloudy tonight, and the moon was scarce. In the black, the desert _screamed_.

"I don't think we can go any farther," the Kazekage mused. He had to shout.

"Here?" but it was a squeak and lost to him. They were approximately two miles from any sort of cover, open and vulnerable on endless dunes of wrathful nature. The Kazekage was performing hand signals. In her horror, Hinata almost didn't notice. When the circuitous wall of sand started to rise, she stepped in closer to him. Cloaks twisted together, their shoulders almost touched. Hinata watched the dome enclose over their heads. The last she saw was the moon, blotted out but stretched into a glowing haze, and then whistling, screaming sands. All at once it was muffled, an echo. Her fear was too loud. "I don't have a candle." So was her voice.

"Fire will burn through our oxygen faster," the Kazekage said patiently. "I have put an eye outside. We will wait it out." And then the Kazekage sat down.

_I am an idiot,_ Hinata reminded herself. With the Byakugan, she was never blind. The comforting jutsu raised strains of veins on her temples and the suppressive dark tightened into both of their glowing chakra networks and the chakra in his dome and gourd. His jutsu had an even diameter of three meters. The Kazekage had more or less situated himself in the middle, so Hinata sat to his right with her back to the sand. He did not comment on the distance.

Suffocating.

Hinata shuffled around some, to alleviate. The ghost of his tailed beast would swallow her. Was it appropriate to engage in small talk? What did one talk about with the Kazekage? Commerce? The weather?

"Are you the Hyuuga that is dating Naruto?"

Her face burst into flames. It always came back to Naruto. "No - well, yes." _Breathe._ "We broke up."

"My apologies." Then he asked, "Why?"

"Ah, normal reasons, I guess."

"Like what?"

This was something she _really _did not want to talk about with Suna's Kazekage. "We didn't love each other anymore," she said, and then added before he could be any more invasive, "May I speak freely, Kazekage-sama?"

The silence waited with her for his voice. "Yes."

"I do not think you should go on these patrols." And now the silence wasn't encouraging, but she forged on regardless - she didn't have to fear a blush in the dark. "They are too predictable, Kazekage-sama, and you are recognizable." The Kazekage could hide irate well: there was a fraction spike of chakra surge indicating annoyance but his breathing was unchanged. He did not respond, so Hinata pushed, speaking to the impassive chakra profile of his face, "It is true that a leader shouldn't hide behind his title, but putting a general on the front lines to play a pawn is...unwise. And with the tailed beast gone, your chakra control needs to be retrained as th- "

"Do you doubt my abilities?" he said.

"I don't know if I have the power to protect you," she admitted.

"Then Tsunade should not have made you jounin," he responded.

They waited out the storm in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

In which Hinata projects. Gets kind of graphic here - I think a ninja hospital would be. Thank you for the kind reviews and sticking with this story.

Chapter Four

Hinata was very, very late. She could tell by the cooling air currents, if not by clock. There was no clock in this particular surgery cubicle. Hinata could not go hunting for a clock because she and Tetsu - the head surgeon - and some other jounin med-nin were trying to delicately shove a woman's large intestines back into her torso. It was not going well.

They had divided the woman's body three ways. Hinata was to be concerned with blood and chakra and the loss and replacement of both. It was not going well. Hinata kept the woman on a steady diet of chakra, enough to keep her system from shutting down, but her body constantly burned through it in an effort to heal itself. The blood bags handed to her by nurses could not come fast enough. They had cauterized wounds to the hip and legs and neck to slow her pace of transfusions, but the woman just kept _leaking_.

The nameless med-nin was on vital and taken with apocalyptic cries of mortality. "Blood pressure just dropped again, Hyuuga-san! She's not going to live another five minutes without another blood transfusion!"

"Another O negative, please," Hinata grunted to a nurse.

The med-nin moaned, "You have to bring her blood pressure up or she's going to go into shock!"

Tetsu had managed to get everything internal arranged correctly, and was now in the process of sewing up the torso with chakra-enforced thread. Hinata replaced the empty blood bag with the fat one. The nameless med-nin was so loud, louder than the frantic crescendo of blips on the monitors.

"She's going into shock!" the nameless cried. "Tetsu-san!"

"I can't stop," he said, continuing to thread. "Hyuuga-san, second revival technique."

Hinata touched two fingers to the tenketsu point directly connected to the heart and _surged_. The nameless' yelling and the flatline faded away. _Again_. The body shivered. _Again._ She touched the blood-slicked fingers of her other hand to the major tenketsu in the forehead. _Again. Again._

"_Hyuuga-san_." Tetsu shook her. His hands were free; her chest was pursed. "That's enough. It's over. Record time of death, Rika-kun."

"20:19," the named whispered.

20:19. All she wanted to do was go back to the place she had to call home and cry.

"I have to go," Hinata said.

"I think you should sit down," Tetsu said.

She looked at the blank page of the dead woman. They had removed her head wrappings when they had admitted her, when one of her teammates had carried her into the hospital from mission and the other carried what he had scavenged at the blast radius of her chest cavity. She was plain-faced and pale and very dead. "I have to go."

The Kazekage was talking to the receptionist in the hospital lobby.

"Please take someone else on patrol tonight," she wanted to say.

"I am so sorry for my tardiness, Kazekage-sama. Please allow me to change."

He nodded wordlessly. Hinata realized a moment later that his docility was probably lent to the fact that her coat and sleeves were liberally splattered with blood. It was unprofessional, not to mention unhygienic, of her.

_You are a kunoichi. Pull yourself together._

"Michiko," the Kazekage said.

"Pardon?"

"My shinobi. Thank you for your service."

She couldn't decide if his words were cold or extremely intimate. Hinata didn't have the energy to stumble over the meaning of his praise and waited.

"You may have a night reprieve, if you wish," he said, surprisingly kind. Her shoulders were already asking to slump under the heavy cape mantle to protect her from tonight's winds.

"I am humbled by the offer, Kazekage-sama, but my mission is to assist Sunagakure. I will patrol."

Hinata met his dead eyes long enough to say her piece, wondered if he was repulsed by hers. Her bloodline could still unnerve the most hardened of shinobi, and so she kept a respectful downward gaze that echoed just a little of her former petrification. She detected nothing from him before glancing away.

"Very well," he intoned. "Tonight we cover the southern desert."

They did not speak again until parting at dawn; in that regard he was considerate.

Knocking on her door awoke Hinata. She was invited to the dead shinobi's funeral, an obligatory invitation she declined as respectfully as she could. An outsider and a murderer would not be welcome.

Hinata watched the ceremony from a safe two kilometers, the farthest she could be from the event without crossing the city borders, one of the few things forbidden of her unless she was patrolling. Suna mourners dressed in white, in contrast to the Konoha blacks. The body was placed in front of a funeral pyre and wrapped completely in white linen strips. The few shinobi that had gathered poured a fist of sand on the chest, the face. She couldn't hear the words but read their lips. The Kazekage was the last.

_We will feel this loss forever._

And then the body was raised and dropped on to the final alter. When the smoke darkened and spit from human flesh, visible to the naked eye, Hinata deactivated the Byakugan. She returned to her apartment, quietly cried as only a Hyuuga could, and drank her tea.

When she arrived at the hospital, Hinata requested to be moved from the emergency department wing to walk-ins, and it was granted.

Hinata decided the Kazekage was annoying.

She hated and feared and envied how he was so effortless. Him, Naruto, Sasuke, Lee, Neji - their perfection only enhanced her flaws. She had finally achieved jounin and would still always be lesser.

"We will loop around, and return with the lower mountains." Then, "Is something wrong?" His voice was always so dead, like he couldn't care less; and level, like he wasn't running, which he wasn't. Hinata kept pace with a quietly hissing tsunami.

"No, Kazekage-sama," she puffed. _He never even offers..._

"Your body indicates otherwise."

Hinata slowed into a jog, siphoning chakra away from her feet so her sandals began drowning in sand. She stopped and so did he. Clouds that would bring one of the year's only rains shadowed the moon and in the dark she could be brave.

He said, "I will send you back to Konoha, if you wish. If your duties are not to your satisfaction."

The mention of Konoha made her ache. She missed her friends, her family, her village, Naruto - but that was over. They made it a priority to avoid each other at all costs. There was gossip networking that Naruto and Sakura were spending a little _too_ much time together as friends, and then this mission had been offered which Hinata accepted gratefully. But

"I understand why we run the same patrol every night," she said. It was simple, really - they ran a predictable schedule because the Kazekage wanted to be noticed, and who better to risk for this aim than someone worth less than his own people?

"I see," he said. "You may opt out if you do not find it suitable."

"I thank you for the offer, Kazekage-sama, but I will not."

"I was under the impression you did not like patrolling."

"I do not dislike the patrols." _I dislike you._

She spent eight hours with him everyday and was all the more lonely after.

"You are troubled," he pushed.

And Hinata - surprising them both - pushed back. "I think Temari was right." She stopped. Had she gained liberty of speech with him? The Kazekage offered no assistance, and in Hinata's frustration she continued, "I know these patrols are meant to attract attention to you, Kazekage-sama, and I agreed to them because my mission objective is to protect the alliance between Konoha and Suna. And that means protecting you. But I cannot do that when you purposely endanger yourself."

"I will say once more: I have no use for incapable shinobi."

"A successful mission requires cooperation and trust between parties, both of which you will not reciprocate - "

"They should have sent your cousin."

In the sun her brain would have boiled. In the dark, Hinata was cold.

"I see," she said. "I am grateful to know your true feelings."

The cloak whipping around her icy calves was painful. His white eyes and face were opaque; the empty whistling of the desert served as his answer. They did not talk again, not for several days after. Hinata did not end tonight crying as she did most nights, but stared out her portal window at the only thing she and the Kazekage would ever have in common: the moon. Her sun was lost to her, and the Kazekage could only watch as his was slowly stolen from him.

The playground for Suna's Academy was unlike Konoha's. Where Konoha had swings and wooden structures to climb and gossip on, targets for shuriken practice and stumps for taijutsu dominated the Suna playground. Even as children, they were not allowed to forget their militarized objective of being deadly. And yet where does one go to heal from psychological haunts but to children? Hinata sat on a flat, dusty roof and watched until the glimpse of a puppet in her peripheral. Nothing escaped the brother's all seeing eyes, then. With that she deactivated the Byakugan and jumped off the residential roof and began walking. Kankuro was waiting on her side of the fence - a big, intimidating man dedicated to loving children.

"Bored?" he greeted when she was still a way off. Hinata walked to him slowly, touched a tentative hand to the fence the brother was leaning on, looked to the inevitable genin. He waited through her introspection.

"I thought they were sending me to Suna to help in the Academy," Hinata told him finally. "Tsunade-sama hinted at such, anyway. I do not think she assumed I would be...working so close with the Kazekage."

"That's a pity, I could have used you. Way too understaffed, but the hospital's more dramatic so it gets all the extra hands."

"The children of Suna are so much quieter." And diligent. And focused. The clan's teaching styles were radically different - or maybe just their ninja.

Kankuro scratched at his hood and looked out on the children wrestling in the sand closest to them. "Hm. Guess we don't have as many loud weirdoes as Konoha, yeah?" He smiled to her and said, "That's the first time I've heard you laugh."

"I - " Was it? Even the barest chuckle she had just let out hadn't happened since her coming to Suna. "I suppose."

He looked at her keenly, a corner of the eye affair that was intensified by the purple makeup. Kankuro said, "I know Gaara isn't a bag of giggles, but he's good - a good brother, and a great Kazekage. Be gentle with him, yeah? He's not used to working with beautiful women, or anyone really."

Baffled and maybe just a little defensive, "I - "

"Just tell me what's wrong."

"He is difficult," Hinata whispered, hoping Kankuro didn't pick up on her misery. It felt like tattling.

"Yeah? What'd he do?"

"He does not think me worthy of jounin."

Kankuro thought for a solid five seconds, and then suggested, "Fight him."

"E-excuse me?"

"You'll lose, obviously. But nothing wrong with trying, yeah?"

"...I do not think my mission condones that. Fighting the...the Kazekage..."

"Or just ignore him, I guess. It doesn't matter to me - OI, Iku! Pulling his hair isn't taijutsu, you dumb brat! - There it is again," Kankuro observed, and Hinata put a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. "You ever laugh in front of my little brother, Hinata-chan?"

She balked at the intimacy of the honorific. "I - uh, n-no."

"Look, try it sometime, yeah? I got to go bring these brats inside. Maybe some tea later at that shop down the street from your place?"

"I - uh - okay..."

"At 18 hours," he called, holding the door of the Academy open for his students.

"Y-yes." Her waving hand drooped - was this considered proper conduct? And his wink - !

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh

"Kazekage-sama," Hinata said faintly. He had already seen her and escape would be futile. The Kazekage was the only Sand sibling in the little teashop filled with doilies and soft pastel green walls and a shriveled old woman behind the counter. Hinata had mortally underestimated Kankuro.

The Kazekage nodded a greeting in the empty shop. The kage of Sunagakure was seated in a window booth - a fact she had somehow failed to notice from the street and reduced her jounin rank to a joke. His gourd was leaned up against his seat, his sun robes discarded. Hinata noted the white neck, the white forearms before nervously catching herself. A slim mug was in his laced fingers. Hinata smelled jasmine.

"I...I-I -"

"Sit down," he interrupted. As an afterthought: "Please."

Hinata wormed into the seat opposite him. She couldn't have been more uncomfortable at a Hyuuga dinner. Their knees were almost touching. She felt vaguely sick.

"Tea?" he suggested.

"Yes, please," Hinata choked out. All the years of controlling her emotions went out the window - over the smell of jasmine they could both smell her fear. The Kazekage was kind enough to ignore it and motion to the old woman. She brought Hinata a cup and then strategically went about her business while the jounin drank desperately.

Hinata paused. "Green tea with jasmine," she breathed. "A specialty of Konoha."

"Hana-san imports it," the Kazekage said. "You have noticed there is not enough of a market for jasmine in Suna."

"Sunagakure favors black teas."

"For the most part. Stronger flavor is more popular here."

This was a safe conversation. Hinata kept her gaze on her tea - heady steam, a few small leaves caught in the bottom swirl of excellent pottery - so she wouldn't have to look into those eyes. Too personal, too close, too scary...she created distance with her avoidance. But though her crippling awareness of their proximity did not decrease, she began to calm. Hinata tried to ignore the pointed stares coming from passerby. No one else dared enter.

Time passed. They drank and the scent brought her back to Konoha. Hinata felt the corners of her mouth twitching in spite of herself.

"Why are you smiling?"

She dropped it instantly. "Frivolous, uh, Kazekage-sama - "

"Tell me," he demanded.

"I - the last t-time I had this tea, one of my teammates accidentally smashed an early Edo dynasty teapot." They had been in the Aburame complex, and Kiba had gotten worked up over a subtle, snide cousin's remark about his clan customs and flailed a little too much. It was the third time they had ever heard Shino laugh. "Very frivolous, as I said... Um...please excuse my directness, Kazekage-sama, but may I ask why you are here?"

He was looking at her. Looking and looking and looking. Searching or memorizing or some complex salient signal. "I - did I do something...?"

"No," he said finally, but continued staring. Refusing to ignore him had proven fruitless and confusing and so in a surprise show of aggression Hinata looked back. _Jishin_. And they went on like that a while.

It was the most time Hinata had been able to spend on his face. The insomnia around his eyes was purple up close; in this way he looked like a more natural vision of his brother. His eyes were paler to reflect the color of the walls, the underside of a leaf instead of the sun-facing. His chin was small and still boyish, his lips thin and colorless as his face, forehead smooth but holding the shadow wrinkles of a boy kage's anxiety. Together they stood out as the palest in Suna.

"If you had wanted Neji," she told him, not unkindly, "Tsunade-sama would have honored the request."

His gaze finally dropped and he said, "I apologize for earlier. Tsunade-san considers you a worthy shinobi. I am deeply troubled about my village, and I spoke from a place of fear."

A kage was apologizing to her, not for someone else but himself. The Kazekage was apologizing to her. This was what she wanted but so so not what she wanted, how - and she could hear herself spluttering out loud, too, how embarrassing and unprofessional - _stop talking and drink your tea!_

And there was the admission of his own troubles. The _Kazekage_ was scared. Her mission was no longer a B-rank.

A person sat down next to her in the booth. She knew his name well. Awkwardness was an old friend and needed no introduction.

"Your earlier question," he eventually prompted in his unique flatness. "Konoha has brought news of their first casualties. Two genin were killed. The third escaped, most likely to report that the enemy shinobi wore a Sand hitai-ate. Someone is very concerned with souring our alliance."

"Has...has Tsunade-sama said anything...?"

"She says she still has complete trust in Sunagakure, but word is spreading around the villages. Things are tense. This must be resolved quickly."

"Yes, I...agree." _Stupid! Obviously you would agree!_

"I am also here for my head med-nin, who has felt your absence."

"Kaori-san?"

"Why did you leave?"

"I - if Kazekage-sama would like me to return to the emergency department, I will of course do so immediately."

He enunciated, captivated her with his attention. "_Why did you leave_?"

"The, um, the Hyuuga are not healers. The Gentle Fist style is deceptively tidy on the outside, but chaos to the organs and chakra network. That is to say," she elaborated, reaching desperately for a way to wade through her indirectness, "I was scared, after... I will report to the emergency wing tomorrow."

"You can do as you wish."

Awkwardness waved down the old woman, had their cups refilled. With her head down Hinata could understand how truly quiet the Kazekage's presence was. In terms of a sixth sense of aura, he was effectively invisible. There was a cavern where all of that rage and bloodlust had skulked.

"On the subject of patrols..."

"_I am very very sorry_ for speaking out of turn, of course you are only doing what is best for your village and it was apprehensible for me to question that, it -"

"I value your opinion, Hyuuga-san."

Hinata couldn't help but fall into the adventure of looking at him again. "Oh," she said lamely. She had no coping method for such honor except to deny its existence, and so tried her best to do that. Running next to someone was one thing, but such a formal setting, so static, so dependent upon words...

"May I speak freely?" he said, and Hinata nearly choked.

"Of - of course, Kazekage-sama!"

"Address me by my name."

Hinata stared. "Eh?"

He was asking for a line to be crossed, for Kami knew what reason. He should know that such disrespect would be likened to heresy. Only Naruto ever got away with calling Tsunade anything but 'Hokage,' and to call another kage by their familiar name... Terrified, she whispered, "I would prefer not to."

"I would prefer you did."

"As you wish," she murmured, and not even the pink sunburn she had received from going outside at noon was enough to hide her brilliant flush of red. He looked at her long enough to note it, and then reached into a pouch and set down coins on the table for the both of them.

"No no no I should pay for the honor of your company it is not right it - "

"You can pay next time," he said as he stood and slung the gourd on. Next time? _Next time? _"Come, it is almost time to meet the returning patrol. Thank you, Hana-san."

"Kazek - G-Ga - um, I see something."

They stopped running, and the Kazekage futilely searched the blue-black horizon. "Where?"

Hinata calculated quickly. "Ah, 5.611 kilometers from us, at approximately 2 o'clock. He wears...a Suna hitai-ate, but none of your shinobi have requested business in the desert tonight. He is currently moving in a southern trajectory to skirt the border between Konoha and Suna. I currently detect no other ninja."

"You lied to me before," he deadpanned. And before Hinata could acknowledge her faux pas he ordered, "Point me in the right direction."

She immediately planted her feet and stared squarely at a target too far away for the Kazekage to see, her head moving indiscernibly to match his pace. "Excuse me, but - "

"How far did you say?" he said behind her, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath through her hood and raise goosebumps.

"Um, 5.5923...4 kilometers. How - "

Hinata jumped when his left hand touched her hip.

Using her as an instrument, he lined himself perfectly to her. She felt him pressed behind her, the toes of his sandals touched to the heels of hers. Five kilometers away, Hinata watched an ocean of glowing sand chase the ninja and drown him. She gasped, refocused to a meter perimeter around her body. The Kazekage had held his arm out to hers, and with an open palm then crushed their fingers into a fist. She refocused again; the ninja's chakra network was flaring excitedly inside a thick dome of chakra-enhanced sand.

_A very beautiful shade of red_, she found herself thinking languidly. Externally, her breaths were shallow and rapid. Her heart thundered, her ears drowned in the oppressive sound of pushing blood. Their fingers were very dry and cold.

"You succeeded in capturing him," Hinata said breathily.

"I know," he replied.

They were a kilometer away when Hinata saw the ninja's chakra network surge and then wink out. She opened her mouth.

"I sense blood," the Kazekage said.

And there was. The bottom of the sand dome was leaking. The Kazekage let his jutsu fall away, and where thick red chakra had entombed flashing, blinking yellow, there was...so much blood. Mangles of clothing and burned, ripped meat were the only remnants of a ninja. A powerful exploding tag erased fingerprints and a face.

"This..." The Kazekage turned to her sharply, as if he did not think, with her delicate disposition, her capable of speech. Hinata tried to swallow the fear and stepped closer to the ruin. She hesitated on stepping into the ring of blood, hated that he saw her hesitate. Another breath. _Jishin_. Hinata strode a few paces in, didn't scream from the sticky wet sand between her toes, barely flinched as she plunged her hand into gore under what was most likely a tibia, tasted the sour bile of her own weakness on her tongue as she unearthed the first valuable thing she could give him.

The metal was warped from the explosion, still hot enough for her arm to tense. But even drenched with gore, the village symbol on the hitai-ate was remarkably preserved.

"Suna," the Kazekage intoned.

"Yes."

He reached for the soaked, dripping lump; Hinata fumbled and dropped it into his palm quickly, suddenly aware that he had increased their proximity. A moonlit stain dribbled down his wrist and she thought of the ghost touch on her hip, his hand crushing hers and overwhelming her with his distant power. He had touched her _the Kazekage had willingly touched her - _

"I will send a message to Tsunade-san."

"Yes," she choked out, and for lack of anything else to do embarrassingly crouched to roll sand in her hands to wash herself of inevitable guilt.

The Kazekage pocketed his souvenir and spoke to the dunes, to the blood splotched on his palm. "This is wrong. A few weeks of predictable, reckless behavior, and we have only one casualty. One clue. Why have they not made a move?"

Was this conversation or rhetoric?

He looked to her. She had given her only gift; there was nothing left to offer. But under the immediate nervousness she wondered, too. Later, though, as they waited for the main gates of Sunagakure to open for them, Hinata mumbled, "A drawn out sabotage is disadvantageous to us. Frustrations will build, and the people will need a scapegoat. It...Sunagakure does not look at me as it used to."

"Has anything happened?" The forcefulness snapped her gaze to him.

A discrepancy had emerged on his smooth brow. "Hyuuga Hinata."

Her voice was tiny from fear of his attention and of something else. "The Konoha florist. His stall is gone. I have not seen him for several days. I...I am asked to wear the Suna flak jacket in the hospital or patients refuse me."

"I see." And his accelerated heartbeat indicated to her the first semblance of presence she had ever felt from him: a slow, trembling anger.


End file.
